Local Gyrokinetic Vlasov Simulations with Realistic Tokamak MHD Equilibria

Abstract

A local gyrokinetic Vlasov simulation code GKV is extended to incorporate realistic tokamak equilibria including up-down asymmetry, which are produced by a free-boundary 2D Grad-Shafranov equation solver MEUDAS. By using a newly developed interface code IGS, two dimensional rectangular equilibrium data from MEUDAS is converted to straight-field-line flux coordinates such as Hamada, Boozer, and axisymmetric coordinates, which are useful for gyrokinetic micro-instability and turbulent transport analyses. The developed codes have been verified by a cross-code benchmark test using Cyclone-base-case like MHD equilibrium, where good agreement in the dispersion relation of ion temperature gradient (ITG) driven mode has been confirmed. The extended GKV is applied to two types of shaped plasmas expected in JT-60SA tokamak devices, i.e., ITER-like and highly-shaped plasmas, and ITG-mode stability and residual zonal-flow level are investigated. Through the detailed comparisons, more favorable stability properties against the ITG mode are revealed for the highly-shaped case, where the lower ITG-mode growth rate and higher residual zonal-flow levels compared to the ITER-like case are identified.